Ideas for Art

How future societies will view the last half of the twentieth century and the first quarter of the twenty-first, if we aren’ blown to bits first, will be ripe fodder for contemporary artists. I can already see the sculpture (it probably already exists) of world leaders with their heads in the sand. Or perhaps a group of spiritual chaps, choose whatever religion you wish for this piece of art, trying to drown out others with their words as the waters of global warming rise to drown them.

No, I don’t believe in an afterlife. I was reading an editorial about how atheists have, by default, become the most tolerant of beings on this planet. I am not sure its true, but I am dead certain that the fundamentalists of all religions would rather talk and walk their own game than listen to anyone else’s. This would make a good painting as well.

Politics are another ripe field for art. I will never forget the photograph of the heads of the tobacco companies being sworn in to tell the whole truth about tobacco. Senate subcommittees are like a breed of animal which is good for photo ops and that is it. The baseball players talking about sterroids certainly learned that to their chagrin.

Moral outrage, not religious based but humanity based, has ceased to have any sway in our society. We are lied to continuously and we are asked to continue to listen to lies in the belief that they may come true. When I was a kid, my parents saw through that tactic when I tried it on them as self defense. Artists, the contemporary ones who are so good at mirroring our lives, need to step up and do something. Please, however, make it really good, well crafted stuff so that it won’t accidentally be mistaken for junk. We don’t need any more of that.